Codie Sanchez explains why copying existing solutions keeps you stuck. Elon Musk discovered rockets cost only 2% of what the industry charged by breaking down the price to raw materials instead of accepting the assumption. Question what feels expensive or hard in your business, challenge the assumptions behind it, and rebuild from first principles.
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So I've been thinking about why do most people stay stuck even when they're working hard? It's because they're copying, and copying gets you average. Elon Musk does something totally different. He doesn't copy. He uses what's called first principles thinking, and it's how he built billion-dollar companies. And if you want more first principles frameworks, follow me. I want to show you more. But first, let's steal his homework. Most people think like this: rockets cost $250 million, so how do we make them a little cheaper? Elon thought like this: what does a rocket actually cost if we build it from raw materials? Turns out it's about 2% of the price, which means the entire industry wasn't expensive. It was just built on these fake assumptions. Average people optimize. Outliers, they build from scratch. And here's where I think this should probably hit you. You're probably running your business, your pricing, your life on rules you didn't even choose. And now you're like, no, this is reality. So here's what you do. You pick one thing that feels too expensive or too hard, or that somebody tells you that's just the way it is, and you ask, What is actually true here? Not what people say our competitors do. What is true according to physics, not opinion? And then you rebuild from there. First principles doesn't just build rockets, it builds everything worth building. In fact, my second favorite lesson from Elon is tomorrow. Follow along and I'll give you that one.
